Reviewed by Francine
Written in M. J. Logue’s inimitable style, “Abiding Fire” edges toward the realms of a psychological suspense novel, as opposed to crime thriller. The author wields a mind-bending analogy to that of a deeply troubled and tortured mind: almost in the format of a journal, as though the main character is secretly confessing to revenge enacted without any sense of guilt. Thus deceit, rumour, and inference enough to ruin any man’s chances of elevation in favoured social circles prevails amidst the ambitious, the dubious, and the worst of the notoriously real-time debauched courtiers of their day.
Initially it is the year of 1663, three years since the Restoration of Charles II to the throne of England. A dreadful murder sets the scene for a mystery that will linger akin to smoke-laden miasma drifting throughout this novel. By 1665 the once Parliamentarian officer, Thankful Russell, who despised all that the Royalists ever stood for during the years of the English Civil Wars, is now gracing the corridors, and the drawing rooms of the great and not so good Royalists. Not only is he newly married and revelling in the glory of having one of the youngest brides on the royal campus, old fears of rejection, fears of failing Thomazina, fears of failing others, and most of all, fear of failing his old commander; Russell is under pressure as a maze of seeming madness surrounds him. And all whilst some unknown person is hell-bent on putting his neck in a noose! All told, this is a suspenseful read peppered with humour, and earthy language enough to lighten and lift the reader in between the more sinister elements as they unfold. All told it's a stand-alone novel, but is nonetheless intricately a part of a greater series of ECW novels by the same author, and of course well-known characters grace the pages.
